Beowulf

good ’usband to her, I will say that for ’im. Six or seven years ago the boiler h’exploded and it scalded ’er face, she ’ad a great scar down the side. But Alec was a fine man and ’ee stuck to ’er. Of course,” and Ruby almost licked her lips, “she was a wonderful cook. I never tasted such eel pies.”
The air began to fill with the smell of wet dust and burnt brick that was peculiar to a badly bombed district. It was a new smell for London, unlike either the musty odour of the plague pits or the charcoal rawness of a fire. This had a touch of explosive about it; subterranean gases seemed to have driven the ordinary, human atmosphere away. The houses looked shaky and desolate as if (and it was what all their occupants were thinking) they could not understand why the foundations still held. People were standing on chairs and ladders to tack wood or bits of canvas over the broken, empty windows.
“Connie never wanted to go out afterwards; I suppose she minded that scar.”
“She had newsa-senior, I expect,” Mrs. Gates pronounced the words slowly and carefully, “same as the soldiers.”
“I keep thinking about Alec. ’Ee went back to the Navy in the spring. I ’ope somebody’ll let ’im know. Think if ’ee came back ’ome and just saw the ’ole!”
“They’ll give ’im bad news quick enough,” Mrs. Gates sniffed. “’Ere’s your stop coming. It’s bin a real pleasure seeing you h’after all this time. Drop in, if you come my way, and ’ave a cup of tea.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Gates, that’s very kind of you.” Ruby picked up her bag and gripped the next seat as they lurched. “I ’ope you ’ave a quiet night and no warnings.” She had to hurry, for there were few passengers and the conductor waited impatiently for her to get off. There was still a crowd by the ropes, sightseers mostly, staring at the ruins. The street was ankle deep in glass; it lay over road and pavement, in sheets, in broad jagged splinters and heaps of brittle crumbs. An old man was making a halfhearted attempt to sweep it into the gutter. Further up there were more officials. A lamp post lay sprawled across the ground, and somebody had hung his cap upon the solitary survivor of a group of railings.
Ruby edged her way cautiously towards the ropes. A paving stone had cracked, but instead of splinters it had bubbled up like dough. She could not get Connie out of her mind. This was a street that she had walked up a hundred times on Saturdays; the crossing was awkward, but once in the shop you were warm and you always felt the better, somehow, for seeing Connie. Not that there was much gossip, “It’s best to know nothing in my business” was Connie’s favourite remark, but she would listen to your troubles and tell you about her own whilst keeping quiet about the other customers. It gave you a feeling of confidence. How impossible it was that she should be there, underneath all that masonry! Instead of past and present running into each other like the river, Ruby looked at an experience that wasn’t Nature, that was almost, she groped for a word … ghostlike … and even that didn’t describe it.
“Good afternoon. So you’ve come up too?” Ruby recognized the speaker as a neighbour who was also “partial to eels.”
“It seemed the least I could do.” She unfastened a coat button in spite of the cold to show her black.
“Her poor husband! He is at sea, isn’t he?”
“Yes, it’s a funny world. Fancy coming back to this.”
“I thought our end had come last night. I put a blanket over my head and stood under the stairs. It makes you go all taut like.”
“Yes, now I lie down. I keeps mee clothes on, all but mee shoes, but I’ve made a bed up, under the kitchen table. Not that I sleep much,” Ruby added truthfully, “for if you do drop off for a second the all-clear wakes you up again. Still, you can stretch out and it’s warm.”
“It’s hard to realize that she’s gone.” Onlookers kept straggling up to stare at the mound where the houses had been. Now and then an official ordered them to move on, angrily.
“Look at all the people, blacking their noses. You’d think they’d ’ave something to do!”
“Perhaps they’re Connie’s friends, like ourselves.”
“Admitted. But there’s no call for them to be noisy,” Ruby glared at a small boy who was kicking the glass in the gutter, “they could stand quiet.” The disorder made her feel murderous, and if that child didn’t stop he’d cut his boots to pieces and how would his poor mother pay for another pair? Men never seemed to grow up; it was like Ed, who would wear the heels of his socks right out before he thought of tossing them to her to be mended.
It began to grow dark. The squad on the rubbish cone worked without turning their heads, but it was like trying to move a hayrick with wooden pegs. Now and again the pile creaked until it seemed as if it would split and engulf everybody. Ruby grew colder and colder; she could not put her left hand in her pocket because of her bag; how lovely it would be if she were Selina, the owner of the Warming Pan, without a care in the world. The customers might be in the country now but they would come back. She knew Londoners. None of them would stand a country winter. Imagine now having to worry about the price of coal! Her merchant had advised her to buy more before it went up again, but where would she find the price of half a ton or even the space to store it? She undid three more buttons. She would stand for a moment, thinking of Connie, then she must hurry off and get Ed’s